• CHERYL G. CRUZ
The maiden staging of the Bacolod Film Festival this September will get a P2 million funding support from the Department of Trade and Industry, through the agency’s Lunsod Lunsad Project.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod already authorized Mayor Alfredo Benitez Aug. 28 to sign the memorandum of agreement with the DTI in Western Visayas, for the transfer of funds to help ensure the success of the film festival.
Bacolod is one of the eight cities in Negros Occidental that are awardees of the 2024 Lunsod Lunsad Awards. The DTI said in a statement that this is a flagship initiative project under the Philippine Creative Industries Development Act, and “focused on supporting and empowering local creative talents, promoting economic sustainability, and developing the cultural and creative landscapes of our country’s cities.”
As per the MOA, the 2024 Bacolod Film Festival: A Lunsod Lunsad Project aims to “provide a program to support filmmakers through grants and activities which develop film literacy to encourage watching these films at cinemas, and to inspire creating films as a niche domain in developing, nurturing, and sustaining the creative industries in Bacolod”.
Ten Bacolod filmmakers have been chosen as finalists in this year’s festival, and received production grant of P300,000 each. Their short films will be screened from Sept. 12 to 15 at SM City Bacolod and Ayala Malls Capitol Central cinemas, as per the Bacolod Film Festival page.
As part of the guidelines for the Lunsod Lunsad project, the city government must co-finance its project in the amount equivalent to at least 25 percent of the total amount transferred by the DTI…ensuring shared responsibility and commitment in achieving the intended outcomes, the MOA states.
The filmfest is pursuant to City Ordinance 1061, or the Bacolod Film Festival ordinance, passed by the SP Feb. 14 this year and authored by Councilor Em Ang, chairperson of the SP Committee on History, Culture and Arts, with councilors Cindy Rojas and Celia Matea Flor as co-authors.
Ang said in the ordinance that “Bacolod and nearby cities in the province of Negros Occidental have been producing films that made their mark in Philippine cinema.
“The Bacolod Film Festival aims to further develop the film production scene in the city by creating a venue where Bacolod/Negros produced films are shown in major cinemas”, she added. | CGC
